Elder and Sister Jeffery: Sate, Durien and New Coconuts

Meet Rali . He lives with his father Budi Cat, a two hours drive from Magelang. They can seldom come to church but we have made visits monthly. This month we presented the family with a copy of the Book of Mormon Stories for Children. The young man is a good reader and we hope they will enjoy scripture study time together as a family.

Rali is part of a happy group of young men playing together. They love to train pigeons. Birds are the most popular pet here.

Though considered food, not pets, chickens abound here.
When Mel's cousin came to visit in October, they tried
to get a picture of a mother hen with her chicks.
Well one old bird cooperated and although our camera
is poor, this one is for you Celia.

Another Book is presented to sister Sri.
She was baptized last month and is still finding understanding
the Book of Mormon difficult. This book is great
to learn about the names, places and events in the stories.

The Book of Mormon is a full of testimonies from prophets
of the Savior and His plan for us to find happiness in this life and
in the life we will live in heaven. We hope everyone
can read and enjoy .

Elder Jeffery organized a presentation about the temple. It uses pictures of our meeting houses here. We talk about what things we do in these buildings. Since Elder Jeffery's cousin, Elder Jeffery, came and took pictures of the saints we have pictures of these saints enjoying the blessings of the gospel here. Thanks again Jim and Celia. The presentation goes on to show pictures of the temples and rooms in the temples. We talk about how the work in the temple is different. They are both for worshiping God and serving Him. But how we serve is different and understanding those differences helps us prepare for attending the temple. We hope to accompany many of the saints here on the stake temple excursion in November. The trip to Manila in the Philippines is expensive. Many families only attend once in their lives. There is a great effort to qualify for a temple in Indonesia. In the meantime, don't forget to make donations to the church's temple patron assistance fund.

Sunday evening family home evening get togethers continue to be a hit. We have many new people learning about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we invited them for a fun evening so we can get to know each other better. Kelik loves helping his new friend Oky learn how to play the game Pit.

We love adding pictures of some our favorite friends from
our Institute classes.

This photo includes the missionaries in Jogya . We arrived Friday evening about 4:00 for missionary meetings and piano lessons. Shortly there after the rain began to fall. It came down harder and harder. Five o'clock arrived and not surprisingly no one showed for English class. So we continued to play the piano and visit. The rain was at total downpour stage at 6:00 and we were ready to cancel Institute and look for and escape from the building. But low and behold Indra and Caesar showed up. The tough and brave souls were a bit wet in spite of the rain gear they wear while riding their motorcycles.So we charged ahead with class. We invited the missionaries to join us for class since they couldn't get out for their other appointments safely riding their bicycles. The rain finally let up as we closed at 7:30.

Here in Magelang we invited our little paper doll guy
to class and talked about"Who is this Guy" . We shared
testimonies of the prophets and learned how each prophet
fills the office of prophet as he represents the Lord. When
the prophet speaks we listen to the voice of our Savior
and leader of this church,, Jesus Christ.

Elders Eyre and Wijaya shared family home evening with the families of Sister Anas and Brother and Sister Antone.
We acted out scripture stories from the Book of Mormon stories for children books. Remember? Wonderful trip along the iron rod making their way to the Tree of Life.

Our sons Evan and Michael and Michael's wife Julia came for a visit.
What a joy it is to be with family

We started out with visiting some
Of the iconic monuments of
Indonesia

Umbrellas were handy for shade as we walked
through the very bright sunlight of the morning

Elder And Sister Baird,the public relations missionaries came for a visit from Jakarta. We just added them to the Jeffery family tour group Elder Baird is amazing. With his emerging Indonesian language skills, he finds joy in talking to whoever he meets. We found some new friends from the far eastern island of Papua or Irian Jaya. One of the things we enjoy most about going to Prambanan and Borobudur is meeting people from all over Indonesia as well as from all over the world.

Family photo with a Buddah

A little meditation time.

The umbrellas so convenient for shade earlier in the day
came in handy as the afternoon rains arrived

OK, there is a fruit here in Indonesia called durien. It is large and spiky and inside is a fruit either loved or hated. It is one of the food dividing lines It is sweet and spongy. You just have to get past the smell of it. Mel likens it to sewers.

Brave souls with mixed responses.

However the mertabak and sate were and are delicious.

The sate guy that sets up in the evenings just outside the church gets lots of our business. His sate is great.

The large hill, "mountain" in the middle of town is a great walk. The monkeys came by to say hello.

At the top is an obelisk marking the
center of the island of Java.
The boys promptly took turns climbing it.
Some local school children hiking
the trail cheered them on

Yes that is Michael at the very top.

We asked for a song from the students and they gave us a
rousing performance of the Indonesian national anthem.

Some college students on a tour of Indonesia leaning about city
planning interviewed us about our experiences as tourists.
Differences between countries were enthusiastically
shared and both sides left with new insights.

Evan found the shoe repair man and now
with his new sole he won't walk on water when it rains.

Fabric stores are a place of dreams for Sister Jeffery. When she walks in, her imagination begins to sparkle. Julia is a textile aficionado too. (Michael says snob) . She loves wonderful fabrics and uses them for her amazing creations. We found batik and here we are shopping for silks. The boys could care less about fabric and kept busy talking game theory.

Communications are difficult with language differences
but the kids jumped in with both feet for English class.
We learned about rhyming and my poets were in their element.

The boys were also in their element as we enjoyed games together. We are in charge of leading the main activity for an upcoming single adult conference and hope to execute a game of Life. We used their visit to import a copy of the actual Game of Life and enjoyed playing it together for our Sunday evening get together.

Evan has a gift of explaining about and leading games.
His gift is making sure everyone gets involved and enjoys themselves.
He scores again.

When Jay was here in January, he commissioned the carving of some helicopter models. Now these are not just any helicopters. They are like the helicopters he is helping build with his job at Bell Helicopter. These are the ones with moving blades so the aircraft can take off vertically but fly horizontally. Way cool, even in a wooden model.